Birthright, Taglit in Hebrew has brought over 2 billion NIS to Israel since it began in 2000, organization officials have announced. Birthright has sponsored over 7,100 groups, hiring over 2,224,700 hotel beds and spending 71,080 days on buses traveling the country – giving a significant boost to tourism and the economy.
It is estimated the program infused 178 million NIS into the restaurant industry, 93 million NIS for transportation, 82 million NIS for tourism sites, and 284 million NIS for gift shops.
34,000 Birthright visitors came to Israel in 2011 alone. During the 2011/2012 winter, over 17,000 young Jews from 32 countries are visiting Israel, a record for the winter program.
(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem)
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4 Responses
How does that compare to the number of yeshiva and seminary students that frum community brings in? Most spend at least 300 nights in Israel – too much time in restaurants.
Oh, but they spend their money in the wrong places and provide employment to the wrong sorts of people.
A few years ago, Birthright cancelled all the yeshiva guys trips, and then made a new rule that if you are learning in yeshiva you are not eligible. They can go to azazel.
akuperma +1
The purpose of this group is to bring in those who would not go to Israel on their own and introduce them to Israel and yiddishkeit – it is not a freebee for everyone. This is for the purpose of kiruv. Yashar koach to Sheldon Adelson for funding this.